Poetry Contest

[Janine]

Virgil, thanks for refreshing my memory. Yes, good, then I have a few more days to revise my poem, or redo it completely...I keep thinking of new things or a different ending. I will work on it. At least I did put down something in print and will post it this time, as feeble an attempt as it may be.

Toni, keep on writing but if you only come up with 2 brilliant lines please post them. I want to read them.

[Triskele]

Was awake till 6am trying to produce something... got 2 brilliant lines, but other than that, nothing more.
Let's see tonight, though.

hate when that happens, yah, get an incredible start, two lines and a structure to rock the world, and the words just don't fit, its like trying to fit a jugsaw into a rubix cube...

[Gazette]

"Things have changed, and people have died, but unless we try all the harder to keep the rights of freedom and true happiness uncorrupted then those people might have died in vain. If it is that we are to be the last generation that recognizees freedom, then what of the future. Is it that in later years both the bond and free will be as slaves to some forgotten king. And will all the people of the Earth be brought down to the dusts of the Earth from which they were created. Maybe so, but as for me I shall preserve the rights and statutes which I do so dearly cherish."

[rintrah]

I walked up on some bright evening
The sounds of the village in my ears,
Voices prickling with the intensity
Of old men, making good their promise
To not go gently into the night,
The hush of the heavens above my head
A few arrayed stars marking out
The bounds of men, the faint
Glistening edge of the sun
Making the presence of the world
Seem thin and narrow, a squinted
Place, an awkward squinted place
And I drew in the air, clearing my
Head, and I thought of the man
Who once told me that the last
Thing the world needs is another book,
he, trim-framed and arrogant,
Placing himself as a the solution to
His own pointless problem

And I thought of the volumes and pages
That dot the sky like stars, endless, seemingly
Like an ocean of mens ideas and womens thoughts
The crashing of waves, clusters of cloistered keepsakes
Bookends washing up on the shore by the harbour,
Floating folios spewing their ink onto the gravel
Mixing the tide-spill with hushed voices and dead thoughts
Thought no more by dead men

And I wondered if there was just one book, only one
A drawstring that pulls us in, makes us fit.
I sat up there for some time, and said
It's just one book, its all one book.
I made my way back down, stumbling in the
Evening light, hearing the men again talking
Their way through life, laughing at old Evans
When he lost his way home and slept in Geraint's
Shed, they slapped their legs and the
Table and howled, and I said, I think you
should write that down.

[rintrah]

Perhaps a little off target, but it's what came out.

[toni]

Well that's two more than me... keep rolling.

Many Thanks, Orion!

Toni, keep on writing but if you only come up with 2 brilliant lines please post them. I want to read them.

Thanks, Janine . Fortunately, I finished it this morning-slept at 5am.
I thought my Mum would kill me .

hate when that happens, yah, get an incredible start, two lines and a structure to rock the world, and the words just don't fit, its like trying to fit a jugsaw into a rubix cube...

Tell me about it. I worked on it for 3 nights-I mean 3 dawns and got 2 lines.
I finished it at last, though.

[toni]

Slave of the Spine

The heart of the tale lay down the spine,
his eyes, glued on the revelations,
knocking on the surface that once were flapping tides.


Spiral musings sit on every line,
Hios screeching tongue now silenced,
snapped shut by pages of lips,
bathed by sweet candlelight.


Once, he went catching silver sunlights on leather palms;
And tied songs in paperback rhyme.
But he marched a tune, once upon a time,
walked hand in hand with sunrise;
strigs of manuscripts, passages, gripped in aging hands,
watched forever unfold in his old eyes;
The immortal- Slave of the Spine.

[dramasnot6]

WOW TONI! ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! I loved it dear! Best work yet!
Congratulations on quite the success!

[Petrarch's Love]

Just a reminder to any interested parties that tomorrow is the last day for submissions to the poetry contest. So if you have a mind to add your work to the wonderful group we've collected so far, then get scribbling.

[Gazette]

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone, long time passing?
Where have all the young girls gone, long time ago?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone for husbands everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the husbands gone, long time passing?
Where have all the husbands gone, long time ago?
Where have all the husbands gone?
Gone for soldiers everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone, long time passing?
Where have all the graveyards gone, long time ago?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Pete Seeger (Born on May 3rd 1919) and Joe Hickerson ( Born in Highland Park IL. 1935.)

[Gazette]

How do you join the poetry contest?

[Gazette]

BECAUSE ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS
Bach/Glazer- Amrita Music Corp. ASCAP
Because all men are brothers wherever men may be
One Union shall unite us forever proud and free
No tyrant shall defeat us, no nation strike us down
All men who toil shall greet us the whole wide world around.
My brothers are all others forever hand in hand
Where chimes the bell of freedom there is my native land
My brother's fears are my fears yellow white or brown
My brother's tears are my tears the whole wide world around.
Let every voice be thunder, let every heart beat strong
Until all tyrants perish our work shall not be done
Let not our memories fail us the lost year shall be found
Let slavery's chains be broken the whole wide world around.

From the cd Songs of Conscience and Concern.

[mir]

Gazette, you join the contest by writing an original poem about the picture the last contest winner posted. (it should be the only picture in the thread for the last few pages, so you can just find it by looking there.) Anyone can join, but the poem has to be your own work. Welcome!

[Riesa]

here's mine, strange and odd, but it's all I could come up with, and it kind of suits me, being strange and odd myself.

Illumination
offered plain and bold
from the whetted stylus
dips the fantastical nib
into intrinsic stillness

fright ties simple
involuntary knots
inside the huddling timid,
peering ever sideways down
and never fixing forward.

As winds carve the ripening clouds
painters spill and leisured lovers drift
on waves of deepened honey
against the canvas’ pale skin they melt
unraveling inner boundaries

they reach as winged gods do reach
by urging away reality
glazing the barest page
with truth and lavish beauty.

[Riesa]

and can I just say, rintrah, that I absolutely loved this.

I walked up on some bright evening
The sounds of the village in my ears,
Voices prickling with the intensity
Of old men, making good their promise
To not go gently into the night,
The hush of the heavens above my head
A few arrayed stars marking out
The bounds of men, the faint
Glistening edge of the sun
Making the presence of the world
Seem thin and narrow, a squinted
Place, an awkward squinted place
And I drew in the air, clearing my
Head, and I thought of the man
Who once told me that the last
Thing the world needs is another book,
he, trim-framed and arrogant,
Placing himself as a the solution to
His own pointless problem

And I thought of the volumes and pages
That dot the sky like stars, endless, seemingly
Like an ocean of mens ideas and womens thoughts
The crashing of waves, clusters of cloistered keepsakes
Bookends washing up on the shore by the harbour,
Floating folios spewing their ink onto the gravel
Mixing the tide-spill with hushed voices and dead thoughts
Thought no more by dead men

And I wondered if there was just one book, only one
A drawstring that pulls us in, makes us fit.
I sat up there for some time, and said
It's just one book, its all one book.
I made my way back down, stumbling in the
Evening light, hearing the men again talking
Their way through life, laughing at old Evans
When he lost his way home and slept in Geraint's
Shed, they slapped their legs and the
Table and howled, and I said, I think you
should write that down.